


Sleepless

by Nazmuko



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hope, Late Night Phone Calls, The X-Files Revival, finding their way back home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 17:15:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15711717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nazmuko/pseuds/Nazmuko
Summary: Sometimes he forgets he's not supposed to call her anymore in the middle of the night. And sometimes she forgets she's not supposed to answer. Evolution of their relationship post-breakup, one insomnia-induced phone call at a time, as they slowly find their way back to each other.





	Sleepless

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the Pilot and the revival, oddly enough. At the end of the Pilot Mulder calls Scully and simply says “I haven’t been able to sleep.” It made me wonder if he still calls her two decades later when he can’t sleep. And most importantly, if she still answers.  
> Thank you Agentwhalesong for your comments and kind words! They mean a lot.

It’s been three weeks now. Three weeks since she packed her bags and drove out of that gate, left behind the only place and the only man who’ve ever felt like home to her. They’d make it through anything together, she still believes that, but they weren’t together anymore. He had slipped inside his own head, his conspiracy theories and nightmares and depression, and she couldn’t get through to him anymore.

She tried. God, she tried for so long. He refused to leave the house and he refused to acknowledge that something was wrong. She got him antidepressants, but he wouldn’t take them. She tried to crush them into his food but he didn’t eat anymore. She begged. She pleaded. She blackmailed. And then, when she ran out of tears and out of strength… she left.

Her apartment is empty and impersonal, the only furniture so far being a black leather couch the previous tenant left behind, and the cardboard box turned upside down next to it, playing the role of a coffee (and dinner, on the rare occasions she actually eats) table. There’s a walk-in closet in the bedroom where her clothes fit just fine and the rest of her belongings still live in suitcases. She’s been working sixteen hour shifts since she left. All she needs is a horizontal place where to collapse for a few hours in between.

She’s going to get a bed, she repeats for the millionth time in her head. Any day now she’s going to walk into a store and order herself one. But her choice of bed says a lot about how she sees her future and she’s not quite ready for such big decisions yet.

An extra long queen means she’s planning to share it with Mulder and though she hopes this is temporary, that he’ll get his life back on track and come back to her, she’s not willing to build her life around that wish. A regular queen means she’s ready to find somebody new and that idea feels completely foreign to her right now. A single suggests she’s gearing up to spend the rest of her life alone. She wonders if they make extendable beds for adults like they do for kids.  _“Room for growth.”_  That’s how she feels about her life right now.

The couch squeaks a little when she rolls over trying to get comfortable.

Just as she’s somewhat settled, the phone rings. It’s her personal phone, so it must be either Mulder or her mother at this time of the night, and it must be important.

“Scully,” she answers the phone without checking the ID. She figures fifty-fifty chances are good enough that she can figure out which one it is from the first word. Except there is no first word, just three seconds of breathing, and then the line goes dead. Even without the caller ID, she knows it’s him and calls back right away.

“Answer me,” she mumbles to herself as the phone keeps ringing. “Dammit, Mulder. Answer me!”

Something must be terribly wrong if he’s not answering the phone after hanging up on her. Series of scenarios run through her head, from him having a heart attack to an intruder in the house to… suicide. That’s the last image that freezes in front of her eyes, him lying on the couch with a bottle of pills.

The call goes straight to voice mail and she tries again. By the time she reaches the overly cheerful message for the second time, she’s already dressed and halfway to her car.  _“Mr. Scully here. Leave a note and I’ll ignore you later.” “Mulder be serious.” “Why? It’s not like anyone calls me.”_

He finally picks up on the fourth try, just as she’s putting on her seat belt.

“What’s wrong?” she asks the moment the call connects.

“Nothing. Nothing is wrong,” he says. “At least not more than usually.” She hopes he can’t hear the enormous relief in the sigh that escapes her lips. She pulls the key from ignition and lets her head fall against the headrest.

“I just… I couldn’t sleep,” he sighs. “I forgot.”

“You forgot what?”

“I forgot you’re not mine to call anymore .”

Tears spring to her eyes unexpectedly. How many more are there? How many habits? How many reflexes? How do you unlearn twenty years of functioning as one unit?

“Mulder…” she sighs. She wants to tell him he can call her anytime, but she knows she’s not supposed to say that.

“I know. I’m sorry. Goodnight, Scully.”

“Goodnight, Mulder.”

She breathes in, and out, with the phone to her ear, and she can hear him do the same. She chooses to think they hang up at the same time.

~○~○~○~○~○~

Somewhere, right now, a little boy named William is thirteen years old. She glances at the clock on the side table, remembers time zones, and realizes it might not be his birthday yet where he is. She wonders if his parents wake him up at midnight like hers always did, or if they wait until morning to celebrate.

She lies awake on the couch, curled up tight under a tiny blanket she used to cover her baby boy with all those years ago. She gathers all her strength and positive energy and sends them his way, no matter where he is. All she has left is a hollow place in her chest where her heart used to be, and she knows she won’t sleep tonight.

It’s quarter to two when the phone rings on the table. She knows it’s important, but she can’t bring herself to move enough to pick it up. Whoever it is, though, keeps trying and finally there’s a beep as her phone informs her there’s a message in her voicemail. That she can do, listen a message, knowing she doesn’t have to reply.

“Scully? It’s me.” He breathes in and out a couple of times, the flow of the air making scratchy sounds as it hits the microphone. “I can’t sleep. I just needed to… hear your voice. Just for a brief second. Please?”

She calls back after a second of hesitation. “I’m here, Mulder,” she says the moment the line connects, and he heaves a sigh. They’re a little broken right now, but all they have is each other. Nobody else knows what it’s like, what they’re missing tonight. She can give him this much, she can give herself this much. They’re allowed to have this comfort.

There’s nothing to say, but they breathe. His breaths are labored, bordering panic, while hers are slow and unevenly paced like she was trying to stop them altogether but made a conscious decision to take maybe one more. And then one more, and one more, and another one again, until slowly they are syncing up to a slow, steady pattern where she breathes in when he breathes out, like they were breathing air into each other’s lungs. Is it possible for two people to resuscitate one another?

She’s not sure how long they keep it up or which one of them ends the call but the line is dead when she wakes up the next morning.

~○~○~○~○~○~

In the beginning the calls were purely for his benefit. She was his last straw to grasp when he couldn’t escape the darkness any other way. But then, little by little, the desperation melted away from his voice. They don’t do this often, and it’s always him who calls, but she has accepted these phone calls as a part of her life, they’re not something she tries to learn out of anymore.

When he calls this time, she’s curled up in the corner of the old, worn leather couch she dragged with her to the house she’s renting now, hugging her knees with one arm and a bottle of wine with the other. She couldn’t bring herself to throw away the piece of furniture because it reminds her of simpler times. Even if it belonged to a complete stranger, even if it carries a faint smell of marijuana and even if two years in, she still keeps finding pennies and gummy bears between the pillows that she’s sure she didn’t drop there.  

It’s the anniversary of Emily’s death and there are no rules for how to mourn a child who was made without your consent and only brought into your life for a few short days before being torn away. She went to the church with her mother earlier, lit a candle for her daughter and another for her son because it’s impossible to mourn for one without thinking of the other and though he’s not dead, he’s gone. They spoke about heaven and peace and meeting again one day but she’s not sure if she believes in heaven anymore. At the very least she must have lost her chance to get in by now.

“Trouble sleeping, Mulder?” she answers the phone.

“Is that Chardonnay I hear in your voice, Scully?”

She smiles and takes a gulp straight from the bottle. It’s different now, with them working together again. The calls are more… She doesn’t feel like they’re clinging into what once was, they’re living in the now. There’s more friendship and less broken relationship in their words. There’s hope, perhaps. That’s the best word she has for it, and she glances towards her bedroom and the extra long king size bed that came with the house. They’re a long way from there but there’s hope.

“It might be,” she answers his question.

“Actually I was wondering if you had a moment to talk about the case.”

She glances at the clock and realizes it’s only quarter to eleven, she just feels tired enough that it could be two in the morning. She recognizes a distraction when she hears one, and it’s exactly what she needs right now. It doesn’t matter what his words are, his tone is saying _I know it hurts and I can’t take it away but I’m here._ She’s slowly letting herself trust in that again.

“Let me get my notes and a cup of coffee.”

She falls asleep somewhere in between the banter and the crazy theories and wakes up lying sideways on her bed, the case notes and crime scene pictures scattered around her, the wine bottle abandoned and forgotten on the bedside table, just a few sips missing.

~○~○~○~○~○~

She insists on working right after her mother dies, and the next few nights they spend on a case, together day and night. They break the rules, both bureau ones and their personal, when they choose to share a room, though not a bed. He sits on the edge of her bed and strokes her hair as she cries herself to sleep on the second evening. She knows he wants to hold her, to physically protect her from any harm and sadness coming her way, but she’s not ready for that yet. 

The first night back home, he calls her, and she picks it up without hesitation. At first they just breathe. If she closes her eyes, it’s almost like he was lying next to her again. Almost.  

He doesn’t ask if she’s okay, they both know she’s not.

“Can I tell you a story?” he asks. “About Maggie. Would that be okay?”

He tells about their first Christmas apart, how Maggie cooked him dinner on Christmas Eve, called to wish him merry Christmas in the middle of the Christmas meal, and filled his fridge and freezer with leftovers the next day.

“She said she was visiting a friend,” Scully says, awe in her voice. “I never… I had no idea.”

“We didn’t talk much,” he says. “You remember how I was. But she came.”

She does remember the expressionless, sleepless, aimless man wandering around the house like a ghost when he wasn’t staring at the wall or the ceiling or ranting about the end of the world.

“She hugged me so tight I had bruises for days,” he says with a little chuckle. “And then ran me a bath.”

“That does sound like mom,” Scully says with a teary smile.

"Can I tell you another story?”

“You can tell me all the stories in the universe, Mulder. I’m not going anywhere.”

They both pause at that because the words could mean so much more than a sleepless night ahead of them, but neither of them elaborates.

“There was this one time… About a year after __”  

A pause follows the word after, where a further description should be, but she can tell he can’t decide on one either. After they separated? After she left? After she abandoned him in his depression to save herself?  _After __._

“About a year after __, when she called and–”

She closes her eyes and lets the tears run silently as he keeps talking. It’s funny how you know someone all your life but it’s only when they’re gone that you realize how little you knew after all. She takes the coin necklace from the nightstand and wraps it around her wrist, then switches off the bedside lamp and lets his voice lull her as close to sleep as she’s going to get tonight.

~○~○~○~○~○~

“Mulder.” He answers the phone all business and she can’t blame him. The only calls he gets in the middle of the night are work related nowadays.

“It’s me.”

“What’s wrong?”

She can hear the rustling as he gets out of bed and starts to pull on his clothes before she’s even had a chance to reply.

“Nothing. Nothing, Mulder. Go back to bed."  _Come back to bed,_  a morning not so long ago flashes in front of her eyes.

"Scully…”

“I can’t sleep. That’s all.”

He chuckles a little and she listens to the little sounds in the background, tries to imagine what he’s doing. Finally a fabric scratches against the microphone and she knows he’s back under the covers.

“We used to do this often,” she says because she called, and she should say something but there’s nothing on her mind, really. She just likes having him on the other end of the line. It makes insomnia more bearable somehow. They call occasionally but usually with an excuse or because of a major crises. Never just because.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “We used to do a lot of things back in the day.”

His voice isn’t bitter or suggestive, it’s simply a statement or perhaps a carefully veiled question.

“We’ve been doing a lot of those things again lately.”

She thinks about running around the country, searching for monsters, searching for the truth. She thinks about endless hours driving and talking, talking, talking. It’s incredible how many stories there are left to tell after twenty-five years. And she thinks about waking up on a dingy pull-out couch with a Mulder-shaped dent in the cheap mattress next to her, his scent surrounding her. She’s been thinking about that part a lot lately.

“We have, yes,” he agrees and she swears she can hear a hint of hesitation in his voice. She knows it’s not regret but fear. He’s afraid she’ll change her mind and take a step back.

“I like it,” she says and hears him breathe out.

“Me, too, Scully. I like it a lot.”

She smiles.

“Can you tell me a story?” she asks.

“A story? What about?”

“Anything. Just talk to me for a moment. So I can sleep.”

“Well.. when I was a kid, we had this neighbor… We called her Mrs Smith. It wasn’t her name but she married eight times during the time I knew her and sometimes took her maiden name back in between marriages so we just couldn’t keep track. Anyway… Mrs Smith had this cat who–”

She falls asleep with a smile on her face and the phone in her hand, his calming voice babbling away about childhood summers before it all went to hell. They’ve been doing this a lot lately as well: Talking about the good things instead of the bad. She likes it. She likes it a lot.

~○~○~○~○~○~

She wakes up to his warm breath hitting the back of her neck, followed by feather light kisses just above her shoulder blade. According to the clock on her nightstand it’s one AM and she can’t have been asleep for longer than an hour.

“ Hmm…” she hums and tries to turn around. He pulls her tighter against him with the arm around her waist. “Can’t sleep?”

He keeps peppering her upper back with little kisses while his thumb gently strokes back and forth on her abdomen.

“I like your bed,” he whispers in her hair and her whole body is slowly starting to tingle under his touches.

She wants to say she likes it a lot more now that he’s in it, but that’s such a cheesy line that she can’t get it past her lips. Instead she hums in agreement and turns her head enough that he can kiss her. It’s slow and gentle, just like everything else about this moment.

“Can I tell you a story?” he whispers and his fingertip starts to wander on her ribcage like he was writing.

“Always, Mulder.”

“It’s about this guy who messed up pretty thoroughly but found his way back home.”

This time he doesn’t stop her when she turns around in his arms. She wants to say she hasn’t moved back yet, but the look in his eyes reminds her that sometimes home is a person instead of a place. With a smile on her lips, she lets her eyes and her fingertips caress his face in the dim glow of the streetlights filtering through her curtains. She traces the lines on his forehead, runs her fingertips along his receding hairline, the amused crinkles in the corners of his eyes as he tries to figure out what she’s doing, the slight stubble on his chin… Then she leans in to give him a gentle kiss.

“That’s my favorite story,” she whispers against his lips, though she has a hunch this one won’t help her sleep. She makes a mental note to tell him the one about the woman who ran away but came back, but that can wait until another day because right now she’s busy listening this one. He’s covering every inch of her with scribbles, kisses and whispered words.

She recognizes that word, drawn with the tip of his tongue across her ribs.  

It spells  _home._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please, leave a little note. Good or bad, just let me know.


End file.
